Oyate Web Page

In 1941, Dodd Mead published the story of a young Dutch family who, in 1756 while living in the Hudson River Valley, is attacked by Indians. The book was awarded the Newbery Medal “as One of the Most Distinguished Contributions to American Literature for Children.”

The father, Teunis Van Alstyne, captain of the militia, responds to a report of raiding and a call to gather, assuring his wife that “ there’s no real chance that the Indians will carry so far as this.” Of course they do. The matchlock gun of the title is the huge Spanish gun, longer than a grown man, brought to “the wild America” by Great-Grandfather Dygert. It is the gun with which the Captain’s son, young Edward, kills the Indians when they come.

They were a young couple to have a ten-year-old son; they were handsome and high-spirited; he lusty and thick-set, a true Dutchman; she, showing her Palatine breeding, dark, brown-eyed, with black hair braided round her head, her slim body limber and quick about her work.

There was only the note of the wind in the chimney and the feeling of it on the roof, like a hand pressed down out of darkness. It was easy to think of it passing through the wet woods, rocking the bare branches where only the beech trees had leaves left to shake.

When the Indians come, they fulfill the expectations that have been created. They are horror, the ultimate nightmare:

There were five of them, dark shapes on the road, coming from the brick house. They hardly looked like men, the way they moved. They were trotting, stooped over, first one and then the other coming up, like dogs sifting up to the scent of food.

This may very well be one of the worst descriptions of Native people in children’s literature, certainly in the 20th Century.

Edward fires off the Spanish gun, killing three of the Indians, the cabin burns, Gertrude is wounded, but the family is saved. On their return, the astonished militia finds them so:

Gertrude still unconscious, Trudy asleep, and Edward sitting up with the gun across his knees, the bell mouth pointing at the three dead Indian bodies….And in the creek valley they had found another Indian crippled and had killed him. But now while Teunis picked up Gertrude, the others just sat their horses and stared from Edward to the dead Indians....“Who shot them, Edward?” “I did. With the Spanish gun,” said Edward. “You’ve killed more than all the rest of us put together!” Mynderse exclaimed.

Paul Lantz’s lithographs are well matched, making the words of the text visually manifest. We see the sweetness, the rightness of the little family and their triumph over savagery.

A dark, double-page spread of the monstrous Indians, back-lit by the explosion of the big gun, with Gertrude at the cabin door, looking over her shoulder in terror, a hatchet buried in her back, contrasts sharply with an earlier illustration of a light-filled autumn landscape. Gertrude stands in profile, her arm around her son, one hand on her heart. Edward’s little sister stands with arms spread wide to take in the whole universe.

Edward asked whether he should take the butter over to Grandmother Van Alstyne….“She can send Tom over to get it.” Tom was the widow’s head negro. Trudy asked, “Why haven’t we any slaves, Mama?” Gertrude explained that all the place really belonged to Teunis, so that Grandmother’s slaves actually were theirs…

This book was bad enough for 1941. Now it has been chosen by the National Endowment for the Humanities, in cooperation with the American Library Association, for its “We the People Bookshelf on Courage,” in order “to encourage young people to read and understand great literature while exploring themes in American history.” These brooks chosen are said to be expressions of themes “that are integral parts of American culture,” and to represent the rich texture of the American heritage.” The Matchlock Gun is a perfect choice for this list, but perhaps not exactly in the way the NEH intended, because it eulogizes an American past in which the indigenous populations were regarded as sub-human, and every effort made to exterminate them.

That this book has been consistently in print for 63 years and is now on a recommended list says something about American culture that some might not care to look at more closely. As for “great literature,” one of the requirements for inclusion on the list was that the books had to have been published before 1980. That eliminates some of the best writing for children of the 20th Century. On the subject in question, Louise Erdrich’s The Birchbark House and any of Joseph Bruchac’s young adult novels would have been better choices than this. This thing has outlived its time—if it ever had one.